Book Abstract

Main Idea

Computer technology is rapidly in the process of being embedded within almost every product that is manufactured. Yet all too often, these new-and-improved products are harder to use than their non-intelligent predecessors - because engineers rather than designers are developing the interface between the user and the machine. And engineers don’t think at all like the average man-on-the-street who knows nothing about technology. Therefore, the situation effectively becomes the equivalent of letting the inmates run the asylum in which they are incarcerated.

Instead of expecting the user to learn how to use the product, the situation needs to be reversed. Better products need to be developed which work the same way average people think. Only then will new products deliver on their implied promise of enhancing the quality of life for their users.

Those kinds of changes will only occur in the real world if responsibility for designing the interface between the user and the machine is transferred away from engineers and into the hands of designers who are skilled in this specific field.

About the Author

ALAN COOPER is the founder of Cooper Interaction Design, a West Coast consulting firm that develops interactive product designs for high-tech companies. Mr. Cooper has more than 20-years’ experience designing and developing consumer software products, and is widely acknowledged as the Father of Virtual Basic for which he received the rare and coveted Windows